I've gotten through one of the 6 manuals sitting on my desk.

Yay, vw! And enjoy your night off from class.

I just got an e-mail from my prof. No class tonight, 'cause she doesn't feel well.

Yay! You definitely have been sounding like you need some down time.

All of that is wonderful, Erin! I can't wait to talk more about this with you, sweetie. I have scads of lessons and units and plans (you'll find in general that teacher editions aren't all that helpful, I suspect--about the only teacher guide I use consistently for lessons/units is Folgers for Shakespeare).

If you haven't already, however, you need to order, own, read thoroughly, and worship Jim Burke's series: The English Teacher's Companion, Reading Reminders and Writing Reminders.

I think they should be standard, required reading for anyone planning to teach secondary English, and they're actually a lot of fun to read through. I've gotten so many great ideas from them.

I also strongly recommend John Golden's book Reading in the Dark, which is a fabulous discussion of how to integrate film study with literature study and Teaching Poetry in High School (even if you're a middle school teacher) by Albert Somers.

Also, a resource for you as a middle school person: The New England League of Middle Schools has great middle school info. My mom is the teacher-in-residence there, and she loves Meet Me in the Middle: Becoming an Accomplished Middle-Level Teacher by Rick Wormeli (scroll down and you'll see it here: [link] ).

Um. I'm going to stop taking up b.org bandwidth now...

I have been living off of spare change for the last 3 weeks. Seriously. I look at change scattered in other people's cars and think "I could buy gas with that..."

I totally thought I would come into this program needing only pedagogy, and be plenty prepared in math.

Then, in my VERY FIRST CLASS, they gave me problems I can't figure out how to do.

This is going to be hard. And fun.

Do you take it? I have. (And you thought the crime obsession came from nowhere.)

When I worked at a movie theater (2nd try at grad school), I bought many a meal using the change found while sweeping theaters. Summers were always better for that, because change falls out of shorts pockets really easily. Or so we theorized.

I should start picking up change. It's part of my learn-financial-discipline plan, which also includes giving up diet cokes, because $0.30 per can times 6 cans per day (and much more per serving if I buy at convenience stores/restaurants/vending machines) comes out to a lot of money over time. A WHOLE lot of money, that could be much better spent on plays, alcohol, cool electronic gadgets, et cetera. Fried egg sandwiches are also part of this plan. ($2 loaf of bread, $2 dozen of eggs, $2 thing of butter for sixish meals. Cheap and delicious! I usually add a piece of fruit on the side that makes it a bit more expensive, though, because otherwise I'd probably die.)

I've been thinking about starting an English teacher LJ just for my English teaching friends...would you be interested in joining?

I'm feeling all left out and sulky.

Seriously though, I'm so impressed by the whole thing. I remember at one point thinking about teaching English, and now that I'm actually getting closer and closer to teaching in general, I find myself thinking, "How on earth do they do it?"

I'm feeling all left out and sulky.

Emily, I didn't mean that non-English teachers couldn't join at all! I just figured most other people wouldn't be interested. You'd be more than welcome as would anyone else who wants to come talk English (or even just general) education shop.

I said "only" meaning only people I knew or friends of people I knew--IOW, not opening it to the general public so much as to a more private community.